Thomas Cannon, of the Littlefield Ballet and Philadelphia Ballet, was one of the white ballet teachers of Philadelphia “willing to teach at Negro schools or privately.” As both were students of Mikhail Mordkin, Essie Marie Dorsey and Cannon may have become acquainted through their teacher. Dorsey enlisted Cannon to work with her best students and to give her private lessons, eventually becoming close friends. Dorsey sent one of her stand-out students, Marion Cuyjet, to the Littlefield School, where Cannon was also an instructor. When Cuyjet was unfortunately asked to leave the school, Dorsey provided the funding for Cuyjet’s private lessons with Cannon.

Cannon taught a “special class at his studio for black dancers” from about 1944 to 1948 (Gottschild 45). Though Cannon reportedly only allowed light-skinned Black students take class at his own school, as Brenda Dixon Gottschild (author of Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina) notes, “The fact that Cannon opened his classes to black students at all must be considered progress in this pernicious system. Cannon—and Antony Tudor before him—were among the first to break this barrier in Philadelphia” (45).

Sources:

Ballet, The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance. United Kingdom, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

 

Marion Cuyjet and Thomas Cannon

Due to Marion Cuyjet’s ability to “pass” as white, her teacher and mentor Essie Marie Dorsey sent her to the Littlefield School, where Thomas Cannon was an instructor and co-founder of Littlefield Ballet. It is unclear how Cuyjet’s dismissal from the school truly played out (she gave several differing stories about the event) and unclear whether Cannon knew or fought for her to remain at the Littlefield School. Nonetheless, Dorsey paid Cannon to give private lessons to Cuyjet afterward (Gottschild 44). This relationship lasted for years, with Cuyjet still taking private lessons from him as an adult.

Sources:

Ballet, The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance. United Kingdom, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

 

More about Thomas Cannon

Thomas Cannon (born 1910) studied under Mikhail Mordkin and Ethel Phillips in Philadelphia and was a member of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, Philadelphia Ballet, and Littlefield Ballet Company.

Cannon frequently collaborated with the Littlefield family (Catherine, Dorothie, and Carl), participating in a dance team “Dorothie, Douglas, et Cannon,” which toured in Europe, and performing for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1938 alongside Catherine and Carl.

Cannon and Catherine founded the Littlefield Ballet Company, for which he acted as ballet master and soloist.

Cannon was in the original 1937 cast of Barn Dance for Littlefield Ballet, which was later remounted by Ballet Theatre (American Ballet Theatre), with Cannon and Dorothie reprising their roles in 1944. He was also featured in the first full-length US production of Sleeping Beauty in 1937 with the Philadelphia Ballet.

Cannon also held many directorial and instructing positions, working as the director of the Philadelphia Academy; ballet master, choreographer, and dancer of Philadelphia Grand Opera; and ballet master and choreographer of Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company.

He established Thomas Cannon Ballet, which was active around the early 1950s to the 1960s.

Cannon passed away in 1977.

Sources:

Ballet, The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
Sydney King and Marion Cuyjet, MoBBallet
Chronology, Catherine Littlefield: A Life in Dance
Music: Sleeping Beauty, Time
Skeel, Sharon. Catherine Littlefield: A Life in Dance. United States, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2020.
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance. United Kingdom, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Choral Effects, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Phila. Ballet Tops Dell Program in ‘Daphnis et Chloe’, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Troupe to dance In Miami, Hartford, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Phila. Grand Opera Rehires Cannon Ballet, The Philadelphia Inquirer
LaScala [sic] Opera Company Prepares Fall Season, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Ballet to Honor Constitution, The Philadelphia Inquirer